Container carriers are used frequently to unitize a plurality of containers, such as bottles or cans, into conveniently saleable quantities. Both paperboard and plastic are materials commonly used. Paperboard carriers generally comprise a box in which the containers are held. The box may be totally enclosed, or may have an open top, with individual compartments for each container. Disadvantages of paperboard carriers include excess material and cost. Further, once opened, an enclosed box no longer holds the containers securely. An open top carrier can spill the contents therein, if inverted.
Plastic carriers have achieved wide acceptance for their performance, low weight, low cost and versatility in being adapted for containers of different sizes and shapes. The general design for plastic carriers includes apertures in a stretchable plastic material. The apertures are sized and shaped to stretch around the periphery of the containers to be held, either bottles or cans. For convenient carrying of a group of containers held by the carrier, various types of hand-grasps are known. Automated machinery is available for attaching stretchable plastic carriers to containers quickly and efficiently.
In one such known design, the carrier is formed from two webs of plastic material juxtaposed over one another. Handle portions and container engaging portions are stamped from the juxtaposed webs simultaneously. The webs are fused or welded along selected portions, such as by lamination. The resulting handle portion is thereby a double thickness of material, and the container engaging portions freely depend from the remainder of the carrier, at each side thereof. The container engaging portions are a single ply of material.
A problem experienced with some plastic carriers of this type is releasing the containers from the carrier. Prying or twisting one of the containers from the aperture in which it is held can be difficult, and the sudden release of a container can jar adjacent containers, causing other containers to be released in addition to the desired container.
A container carrier having a release feature allowing each container to be released individually, while retaining the remaining containers secured, is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,642,800. This patent, which is commonly owned with the present invention, teaches a carrier having a plurality of apertures each for holding a separate container. An outer margin portion of the carrier includes a series of perforate lines and slits along which the outer margin portion can be torn. The slits are spaced from the perforate lines by a breakable link area to redirect the tearing force from one tear-completed perforate line to the next adjacent untorn perforate line. Tearing the margin portion along the perforate lines successively releases first one of the containers, and then another, until all containers are released.
A trend in the beverage industry is to group larger quantities of containers for sale. A large group of containers, whether bottles or cans, secured only by stretchable rings in an array of a plastic carrier, might have a feel of instability, with individual containers allowed to skew or twist relative to other containers in the group. Even with smaller quantities of containers, such as six-packs, the feeling of insecurity can occur as the containers twist and skew while being carried.
In co-pending, commonly owned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/251,312, plastic carrier is provided with an array of rings, including one ring for each container, and a stretchable sleeve for surrounding and securing the group of containers. If a carrier having the easy opening feature described above is used, it is difficult to operate the release feature as the carrier array is nested within the sleeve, and the sleeve interferes with the tearing aspect of the carrier. Removing the sleeve should be intuitive and simple, requiring no tools such as knives or scissors.
What is needed in the art is a well-secured container package that has an easy and convenient opening feature.